Two weeks from now I will be away on a much needed vacation. Since it is too soon to start packing (though daydreaming moments have been filled with list making including what to take with me . . . ), I'm daydreaming of reading possibilities instead. I feel like my life has been filled with the same refrain over and over this year--the feeling of being continually overwhelmed, behind and out of sorts in general. I don't expect my vacation to solve many problems, but gosh it's going to be good to get away and see a different view. I already know it is going to be disorienting, but in a good way. I'll have eyefuls of an entirely different place and geography and coming home to the same old house will make me 'see' how shabby and samey it all is. Does that happen to you, too?
I keep going through mental lists of books that would be nice to read on vacation. My only desire is to choose books that will be absorbing and entertaining. Don't be shocked by my pile. Truly, they aren't all going with me. This is only the first iteration, there will be more as I see how my mood changes between now and then. I will 'only' be taking three books with me--one for the plane ride there, one for the plane ride back and one for the days I am there. I realize that is still extremely optimistic. But, hey, this is vacation we're talking about. Indulging is perfectly acceptable.
I know I will take a Mary Stewart novel (still not entirely sure which) and I think I want a good spy story. That leaves one more, the type as yet undecided. A novel? A mystery? Maybe some nonfiction? Hmm. Whatever frustrations that might arise these days are being alleviated by thinking about good stories and (that new view . . . which will most certainly include ocean views. Sigh.).
So, let's see. Mary Stewart is a shoe in. Right now am leaning towards Madam Will You Talk? which has been recommended by a few of you. It has a French setting, and I think takes place in part in Marseille.
Gregory Hall's The Dark Backward is a book I started a while back but has been relegated to the bedside pile of--I really want to read this but have too many books started so am setting it aside temporarily. It's a story of suspense about a woman who's husband goes missing.
I have owned a stack of books by Belva Plain for many, many, many years. She writes (wrote?) sweeping family sagas. One begins with Evergreen and is the first of three or four books. This begins at the turn-of-the-century in America. It's probably not the most practical book to take along since it is chunky with small print so I am unlikely to finish it while on vacation, but it does look pretty absorbing.
One of those Cornell Woolrich books I found over the weekend would be good. I've pulled Deadline at Dawn from the pile, but any would do very likely.
I've heard many good things about Jane Rusbridge's, Rook, plus is sounds quite descriptive of the Sussex landscape which is very appealing at the moment.
Last year I bought Simone St. James's first book while on vacation. It would be fun to read her second, An Inquiry into Love and Death while on vacation. Plus there is the added benefit of it being a RIP read.
Possible spy stories include William Boyd's Waiting for Sunrise and Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth, which I suppose are not exactly traditional spy stories but both books have been picked up and perused and put down by me numerous times (of late especially the Boyd).
If I take a hardcover I will only take one and then any other books will have to be on the small size (mass market editions). I'm very tempted by Alice McDermott's newest book, Someone. I loved the book by her I read earlier this year and have wanted to revisit her work ever since.
Anticipation and planning and thinking about vacations is half the fun, right? I'll need to do a little dipping into my pile (it's quite a hodgepodge, isn't it?) of books to see which "fits" my mood. (And that will be part of the fun, too).